


Theirs

by Saber_Wing



Series: The Ties That Bind [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), Drama, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Maxwell Trevelyan Defense Squad, Mess with their boy and no one will ever find the body, Poison, Poisoning, Trevelyan (Dragon Age) has Sibling(s), Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29300292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saber_Wing/pseuds/Saber_Wing
Summary: The Inquisition learns they need to start having someone test the Herald's food before he eats it -- the hard way.
Relationships: Dragon Age: Inquisition Advisors & Inquisitor, Inquisitor & Leliana (Dragon Age)
Series: The Ties That Bind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1254914
Kudos: 23





	Theirs

Max was going to be sick.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, struggling to pay attention to the proposal Cullen was presenting at the war table.

“—supply lines. Alexius must have them coming in from somewhere. We cut off that route, and we _may_ chase him out.” The Commander moved a piece on the map in front of them, resting his chin on his hand.

Leliana scoffed. “I doubt it. That would accomplish little beyond making the people suffer. Not to mention the length of time it would take to achieve this; even should we succeed.”

“Which would not be looked upon kindly by the King of Ferelden, I might add. We cannot enforce any sort of blockade without appearing to launch an invasion,” Josephine concurred, her face a mask of revulsion.

Max let their bickering wash over him. This was normally the point where he’d intervene, but he didn’t have the energy. Not today. He’d been fine earlier, but now, his stomach felt sour. Harsh waves of dizziness crashed over him, cold sweat breaking out all over his body. The collar of his tunic was sticking to the back of his neck.

He grimaced, taking a sip of his tea. He hoped it might do _something_ to settle him. Instead, his stomach cramped, sharp pinpricks of discomfort needling it more by the second, and he set the cup back down on its saucer.

A fresh wave of nausea churned, and he clenched his lips together, squeezing his eyes shut.

Max was _going_ to be sick _._ He just hoped he could hold off until after the meeting.

Cullen scowled. “What, then, would you suggest? We cannot simply gift wrap the Herald and send him off to Redcliffe.”

“We keep coming back to this. We are weaving circles around each other,” Cassandra observed, shaking her head in disgust. “We are not _dogs,_ chasing their tails!”

“I’d be willing to go,” Max forced himself to contribute, blinking away the static. “What better way to distract a Magister than to strike when he thinks he’s won?”

Cullen jerked his head up at Max, his manner fierce. “It’s too risky. You’re too valuable to send off like a lamb to the slaughter.”

It was times like these Max remembered he was only a tool to them. At least his family had made no _secret_ of his status as the throw-away son. Expected him to uphold the family name, and little more.

The Inquisition dressed it up with titles and pleasantries, but at the end of the day, they weren’t any different. The anchor on his hand marked him as touched, but Max himself was as much a means to an end as he’d always been.

His jaw clenched.

“No one is suggesting that, Commander,” Leliana conceded. “But if we—”

Max’s vision blurred, a wave of vertigo smashing into him so violently, it knocked him off balance. He stumbled sideways into the table, jostling the markers and pins.

The others froze. They turned their heads to stare at him one by one, with varying degrees of irritation. 

“Sorry, continue. I’m listening.” Max waved them off. He loosened the collar of his tunic, tugging at the strings. “It is _warm_ in here. Is anyone else _warm_?”

Whatever they saw, they must not have liked it, because all four of them frowned—nearly in unison.

“Are you quite all right, my Lord Trevelyan?” Josephine asked, after a beat of hesitation. “You’re looking a bit flushed.”

“Fine, fine.” Max suppressed a wince. Something deeply unpleasant twisted in his gut, and he doubled over before he could stop it, curling an arm around his stomach. "Think I ate something bad."

Leliana’s eyes narrowed. She rounded the table with a level of urgency that struck Max as odd. It set off alarm bells, muted though they were beneath the layers of fog enveloping his mind.

“What were you doing before you came here?” Leliana implored. A wave of dizziness washed over Max again, so fast his knees would have buckled if he hadn’t staggered into the table. He braced himself on its top with both palms. Realized, with a bit of alarm, how weak his limbs were, heavy and trembling.

“I, um…” Max’s head swam. “…answered some missives. Went to the training grounds for target practice. Swung by the Herald’s Rest—”

Even as Max spoke, Leliana's gaze swept over the table. Spotted the cup, beside the maps. She pulled it toward her. Dipped a finger into the lukewarm liquid and held it to her nose.

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded, sharp, dangerous.

The energy shift in the room was palpable, moving rapidly from concern to alarm. At first, Max didn’t understand why. Couldn’t speculate, the way his thoughts slipped through his fingers, like water. Eventually, however, the slow-turning gears in his mind caught up. Caught onto the implication of her words.

“Flissa,” Max heard himself mumble, far away. “She…makes it how I like.”

Someone cursed.

“Send for Adan.” Leliana was holding him up by both arms. Max let himself be led, steered into a chair. “Solas, if you can.”

Everything was happening so fast. A whirlwind of colors, sounds. Rushing footsteps. Slamming doors. Max couldn’t make himself focus, no matter how hard he tried. Lucidity was slipping away from him, further by the second. He could barely think through the static now, and he was scared.

His chest felt tight. It was getting hard to swallow.

A hand gripped his chin. “It’s all right.”

His breathing was harsh, coming faster, and faster. He felt hot and cold all over, bile rising in his throat.

Max couldn’t hold it off any longer. He was _going_ to throw up, and he should say so, but he couldn’t find the words. He flailed a hand vaguely in a direction he hoped the nearest empty vase or tankard would be, clamping the other over his mouth.

Leliana fired off an order to somebody behind her, thrusting something under his nose just in time for him to puke. What felt like every organ, even vaguely in the vicinity of his ribs.

“—his brother?” Josephine’s voice, far away.

Another voice. Farther still. “They just set out. Can’t be more than a few hours away.”

“Send them word.”

 _Maker,_ his stomach hurt. The nausea was relentless, and Max dry-heaved into the vase, though there was little left but bile. His body strained to expel the sickness, every muscle trembling from the effort.

Leliana was kneeling beside him.

“I know you’re frightened. Try to think. Panicking only makes it worse.”

A strangled noise—Max wasn’t sure if it was a sob or a laugh, and frankly, didn’t want to know—exploded from his lips. At least it wasn’t vomit. _Th_ _is_ time.

“Easy for me to say, yes?” Leliana quipped. She forced his head up, cupped his face with both hands. Max blinked his eyes open, though his vision blurred, clouded by tears. “What’s your favorite story, Lord Trevelyan?”

“My…” Max blinked, incredulous. “…m-my what?”

“Your favorite tale. You have them in the Free Marches, no?” She was close enough for him to see now, and she smiled. Gently, with so much kindness, Max ached from it. “Shall I tell you one?”

Max remembered being terrified of her upon waking after the Conclave. The famed Lady Nightingale, looking down at him with scorn. Sizing Max up and finding him wanting. Her eyes had been hard and cold—the eyes of a woman who’d seen much evil and ordered even more. They’d been shrewd, discerning. There wasn’t a secret Max had—or ever would—that he could keep.

These couldn’t be the same eyes. Compassionate and warm.

Maybe it was the poison talking. The raw, visceral fear, clenching a fist around Max’s heart and squeezing, like a vise. Maybe it was because he was scared and Leliana was there in front of him: calm, and grounding. The thing he had to cling to, in a world gone mad.

Max leaned into her touch. Struggled to slow his breathing; rapid, and shallow. He nodded.

“Perhaps you have heard tell, then…” Leliana began, pulling up a chair. She sat in front of Max. Held his hands in hers. “…of the Hero of Ferelden. A very dear friend of mine.”

He dropped his head onto her shoulder. It seemed impossibly heavy, and he felt safe resting it there, beyond _all_ reason.

“I was but a lay-sister in a small cloister when I met him. In a little town, called Lothering. Lovely people; simple, but friendly.”

Max found himself hanging on her words. His stomach cramped, his throat, seizing, and a fit of coughs exploded from his lips. She hushed him, talked him through it. Wiped his mouth with the back of her glove.

Her chainmail was speckled with blood. Max tasted copper on his tongue.

“His cause was just, and good.” Leliana kept on without missing a beat, her voice melodious and lilting, like the last notes of a song. “It seemed to me he held all the Maker’s strength and his justice, in the palm of his hand.”

Her words comforted Max as all else slipped through his fingers. The world fell away. And when he drifted back from the brink?

The voice was _gone_.

Max lurched upright, with a gasp.

“Max?” His brother’s voice from beside him. Touching him, with tender hands. “Dear heart, it’s all right.”

“W-Where…” Max collapsed back, eyes darting wildly from one end of the room to the other. “What…”

Tobias looked almost comical. His clothes were askew; his face, tattered with road-dust. His bottom lip was torn, where he'd bitten through it. His hair was sticking up at angles Max hadn’t known it was even _capable_ of. He’d never seen him so disheveled. Clearly, he’d ridden straight here and had yet to stop, even to change clothes _._

It might have been funny, if not for the fear in his eyes.

“What…happened?” Max questioned, almost afraid to ask. “Why am I…?”

Tobias sat on the edge of the mattress. Pushed his hair back. “What do you remember?”

“I…” Max felt sick. He slumped against Tobias. He didn’t think he was imagining the way his brother trembled, wrapping an arm around Max to support him. “I'm not sure, I…she…”

“Shh, rest easy. You’re not to overexcite yourself. Healers orders.”

“I…” Max struggled to peer into his memories through the disquieting haze. “Was I… _poisoned_?”

Something savage entered Tobias’s tone. “We’re lucky Commander Cullen and Lady Cassandra acted so quickly. That… _swine_ nearly escaped.”

“How…” Max swallowed hard. His eyes widened, and he pushed away from Tobias with a gasp. “The tea. It was the tea, they—”

“We know.” Tobias’s eyes were grave. “Fortunately, that knave hadn’t the slightest clue what he was doing. He used corrupted deep mushroom extract, the wrong concentration. At the right dosage, it could…well. Let’s just say we’re lucky he miscalculated. Apothecary Adan was able to synthesize an antidote. We are investigating, but Lady Nightingale thinks the tavern proprietor had no idea.”

“I second that. Flissa wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Max sank back into the pillows with a sigh. “I _thought_ it tasted funny.”

“You thought it tasted—” Tobias cut himself off. Rubbed a hand over his face. “You thought it _tasted_ funny.”

Max blinked. “Um…yes?”

Tobias replied slowly, patiently. With the air of someone trying not to scream. “And it never _once_ occurred to you that someone may have tampered with it?”

Max grimaced. “No?”

Tobias sighed. Held his head in his hands. “Remind me why I thought I could leave you alone for a week to run your _errands_ again _?”_

Max, at least, had the sense to look sheepish. “Because I asked nicely?”

His brother glared.

The door swung open: a head, poking in.

“How is—” Cullen saw that Max was conscious, and his face broke out into a grin that looked as warm as it was relieved. “You’re awake! Thank the Maker.”

Max watched, bemused, as the Commander rushed back out as quickly as he’d come, not even pausing to properly shut the door, and something in his chest warmed.

“He’s been guarding your door all night, I’m told,” Tobias said, following Max’s gaze. “Didn’t trust anyone else, before they found the culprit. He and Lady Pentaghast have taken shifts.”

As if in response to Max’s stunned confusion, the door swung open again. This time, framed by Cullen, and two other hopeful faces. Josephine looked misty-eyed. Even _Cassandra_ was smiling. Perish the thought.

“All right, all right, enough gawking,” Adan admonished, bursting through the door behind them. He shooed their onlookers away with an irritated huff. “You’ll wear out my patient before I’ve even _seen_ ‘im.”

It took a few extra moments of silent, delirious contemplation, after the others had been ushered away before Max had the faculties to speak. He let Adan fuss over him, Tobias gazing on with wide, vulnerable eyes he’d never have been caught _dead_ displaying in the political circles back home. It took Max aback to see it.

“Leliana,” he murmured, the words almost slurred. His breath stuttered. “Where’s Leliana?”

Tobias softened. Pushed his hair back. “She went to question the _filth_ once we were certain the danger had passed. I’ll tell her you want her?”

“Please?” Max’s eyes fluttered. “I…I have to…”

Max was startled to find himself jerking awake again some indeterminate amount of time later, with no memory whatsoever of drifting off in the first place. Disoriented, he took in the room to find his brother still there, now in fresh clothes, sleeping on the bed next to him.

At first, he wasn’t sure what had woken him. A shift in the wind? A creak in the floor? He felt rather than saw an approaching figure. The lights all doused, save a candle across the room.

A hand slid over his throat. Two fingers, checking for a pulse. They brushed his cheek as if by accident. Smoothed a lock of hair away.

His eyes adjusted just in time to see Leliana turn, hood drawn. Cloaked in shadow and chain. The Lady Nightingale Max now knew to be a clever facade. A lie.

No. Not a lie _,_ perhaps. But a fragment. A fraction of the whole.

He tried to call after her. Rasped something that was not quite her name. She paused.

Max felt himself slipping back under, whether he wanted it to happen, or not. Before he could, however, she turned. Strode back up to the bed and gazed down at Max, inscrutably.

“Sleep.” She reached out to brush his forehead, barely making contact before seeming to think better of it. “We shall speak later.”

Max caught her glove with the tips of his fingers, not strong enough to manage anything more. He had to say something, but the words caught in his throat. What _could_ he say?

‘Thank you’ seemed inadequate. A child, flailing at gratitude.

Leliana seemed to understand. She straightened a blanket that had fallen from his shoulders. Smiled, gently enough he may have missed it if he’d blinked.

Max was back on his feet before long. A week or two of light duty, with his adversaries none the wiser. It was found that the man who’d poisoned him had been an amateur herbalist. An infiltrator, acting on his own, with no compatriots.

The Inquisition used the poor sod. Held him up as an example for all to see. They used it, used _him_ , and they closed ranks around their Herald. Rectified the near-fatal mistake that left him vulnerable to attack in the first place.

They'd been lucky this time. They all knew it.

Max noticed the shift in the Inquisition's advisors. In the way they hovered, closer than before. He noticed them watching him: Cullen, Josephine, and Cassandra. The Lady Nightingale, lurking in shadows only she could see. He was real to them now. Human, beyond the legend and the rifts. A person, beyond his ‘usefulness.’

The Herald was theirs. No one threatened one of theirs.

Fortunate, the servants whispered, that the Herald had been too sick that night, to hear the bastard’s screams.

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory poisoning fic, yoooooo. Really, though. There are a severe lack of poisonings and assassination attempts in this fandom. What the fuck.
> 
> Also, I've really been wanting to explore Max's relationship with the rest of the Inquisition, particularly Leliana. She's got such an interesting duality to her, and seeing her development throughout the Dragon Age series has been, to me, very rewarding. I've only hinted at this, but she mentors him, in this series. He sort of idolizes her, it's really cute. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much, and as always, I hope you enjoyed. Happy to have you here.
> 
> \- Saber


End file.
